Are you keen on reporting? Do you like having a global view over your data in OpenERP? Then you'll be glad to know that we have redeveloped from scratch the graph views in OpenERP to make this possible. Besides having a great fresh and new look, the new graphs will help you better visualize your figures. 

Here is a screenshot of the new graph as available in the v7.0 CRM dashboard

For v7.0., the graphs have a cleaner layout than those of the version 6.1 of OpenERP and on top of that support numerous extra features:

In the 6.1. the look is a bit outdated and lacks options of any kind. The user is not allowed to edit the information or shape. 

Here's how it looks in 6.1.

We hope this will save you time and help you in better understanding your data.

When you google "Enterprise App Store", you will find plenty of articles on software focused on how to develop a corporate policy around the current Apple or Android apps. This is done in order to constraint employees to use only a set of apps that follow corporate guidelines: security checked, open data, etc.

But we think enterprises need an app store with plenty of apps tailored to their business needs. That's why we are planning to build the OpenERP Enterprise App Store where we will adapt our apps to your requirements .

What makes an Enterprise app store different from a consumer app store?

What we plan to do in our case is to follow the requirements listed above for all the aprox. 2.000 OpenERP Apps that currently exist. Consequently, by making major improvements to the platform, it will become the leading Enterprise app store for every business applications. Therefore, before the end of the year, we plan to release a new version of http://apps.openerp.com which will become the central place to discover, test and install new OpenERP modules.

We will work on new features like: ratings, top 20 apps, top contributors, better explanations of each apps, related documentation, automated updates, etc. No need to worry about the price, you will still be able to get hold of these apps free of charge. 

Migration of DB with custom modules is totally possible and supported by our migration platform. Here are the detailed steps:

1) The partner dumps his customer DB (the whole DB with custom modules)

2) He uploads this DB on our migration platform: http://migration.openerp.com/

3) OpenERP does the migration job:

•     restore the database
•     uninstall all custom modules
•     execute all scripts required  for the server update
•     execute a server update (-u all)
•     dump the migrated database
•     adapt the generic scripts if necessary (error during one of the previous steps or functional   tests not passed)

The important fact is that we migrate the original database in place. All is done in the original database. For example, we restore the v6.0 database and execute all the scripts in this database. At the end of the process, this v6.0 database becomes a v6.1 database.

4) the partner will then receive an email with a link to his migration request status page where he can download the migrated database.

On this page, 2 migrated databases are available:

 * 1 WITH his custom modules data untouched

 * 1 WITHOUT custom modules data (custom views, custom workflows, some attachments, ... and anything which will prevent us from doing functional tests were removed). This database is mostly useful for us, never install it on a production server

He can also access some additional and important information like:

  * a technical log file: all technical changes between original version and the version migrated.

  * a functional log file: describes some important functional differences between the previous version and the new one. Also lists some important data migration we had to perform on the database like adding a new object when it's required.

  * the list of the different migration process we executed on that database with the server, addons and the migration scripts revision numbers listed.

At that point, the job from OpenERP's side is done, all certified modules (and their data) are migrated. Now the partner has the choice for the custom part: he can handle the migration himself or ask OpenERP to do it for him.

If he chooses to do it himself:

5) the partner adds his custom modules in the new OpenERP server environment, restores the DB with custom modules, perform a server update

6) The partner fixes any problem that may occur

It is possible that no work needs to be done on the migrated database regarding custom modules. For example, if you have a custom modules extending the 'product' model by adding a field. If the database schema of the 'product' models has not changed, you will retrieve all the data related to your new field and no work needs to be done at all.

Another example, if you have a v5.0 database with a custom module adding a field to the 'mrp.procurement' model. You will not have anything to do in your migrated v6.0 database regarding this field because we already migrated the 'mrp.procurement' model to the 'procurement.order' model in v6.0. The data related to this field will be present in the 'procurement_order' table. Of course, you will have to convert the module in itself which means the python code and xml files, ...

Concrete example:

To show you how it works concretely, here is an example and step by step process:

I have my database working on v6.0 of OpenERP with the following custom modules installed:

1) I make a dump of my DB and upload it on http://migration.openerp.com, and specify that I want to migrate to v6.1

2) a few minutes later (because my DB contains few data), I receive a confirmation e-mail saying that the migration could end successfully and get a link to download the migrated DB: http://migration.openerp.com/status/a07bf528f8804b6da90bc86bd2bb6849.html

3) I create a new v6.1 environment with my custom modules

4) I restore the migrated DB (the one with uncertified module)

5) I perform a server update (-u all)

6) if a technical problem occurs during the server update or during my functional tests:

  * I try to fix them if they originate from my custom modules

  * if the problem originates from a certified module:

    - I send an email to the Migration Service if I suspect this is a migration problem (migration@openerp.com)

    - I send an email to the Support Department if I suspect this is a server, addons or client problem (support@openerp.com)

7) in our case, no problem occurred during the server update (the 3 custom modules are now installed). The database does not need to be modified from a partner side of view. (NOTE: some functional tests should still be done before validating a migration.

Service from OpenERP:

OpenERP can do for you the job of migrating the custom modules from one version to any future version. This is an extra service, not included in the OERP Enterprise contract. The price of this migration service is based on the code lines of the custom modules (800€ per batch of 1000 lines of code). Feel free to contact your partner or your OpenERP Account Manager for more information.

Recently, we just finished a new feature that we think you're going to like. We developed a new way for you to add tags to your customers.

It's no longer needed to open a new window and go though a number of steps just to be able to add a tag. Now, you just write the tag you want and it's automatically created. 

Bellow there's a window with the old version

In the new version, you are immediately able to see where you can add your tags. The biggest benefit is that it's more user-friendly, saves your time and it looks cool as well. 

Next step is simply creating the tag and you can easily do this by just writing the tag and click create (we associate the many to one quick create to the many to many)  You are free to choose whatever tag you think it's suitable for a particular contact 

For example, you can add "Reseller", "Supplier", whatever will help you or your colleagues.  You will also be able to make a search on this tag in the list view.

The many to many tag is extended to a certain number of OpenERP objects. It is used for categories in contact form, for taxes in order lines, categories in opportunity form, etc...

Also, it's much more straightforward to see the different categories of the customers. 

We think it's just another feature that is making OpenERP even more intuitive for the new users, as well as for the existing ones!

Happy tagging!

In order to avoid any confusion when dealing with contacts in OpenERP, we made some changes. The former structure (partner, address, contact) was too complex and so it wasn't so suitable for handling situations like B2C, when you have to deal with individuals and not with companies.

How will this help you? In the first place, by eliminating res.partner address object there's more clarity of who's who. Before, it was difficult at times for users to understand what's the difference between a partner and a contact, as not everyone you do business with can be called a partner, but on the reverse side, everyone is a contact.

So, we kept the the same features, merged the two menu items (contacts and customers) and kept the functionalities. As a result, now when you want to add any contact details, you can specify if it's a company or an individual. By simplifying the views, there is only one single field where you can add a company name, address, etc.

The biggest change is that, for example, when creating an invoice, you can now select a company or an individual. Whereas, before that was not possible, you were only given the choice of selecting a company. 

So, in the future menu (see below), the item Contacts is no longer present in the Sales application, you are just left with Customers. This field will contain both companies and individuals. And with the help of the new filter, you can easily find the information you need. See here more details on the advanced filter 

You will be able to find this item in Sales -> Sales -> Contact

We have now developed a module that helps you integrate your OpenERP with google docs. There hasn't been anything similar developed until now, so everything has been done from scratch. This module is available for the 7.0 in trunk, under de name: google_docs.

How will this new module help you? Well, you will be able to create google docs directly from OpenERP objects and link it to that object. Of course, it can be just a normal text document, spreadsheets, presentations or drawings. You have the possibility to choose if you want to create a document from draft or based on a template to copy.

How can you start using it? 

We hope that this will help you to further integrate even more your tools with OpenERP!

In the last few months, we have done a lot of usability tests to see what needs to be improved, what needs to be completely changed or what needs to be eliminated all together. As a consequence, a feature that was developed to ease up the navigation through OpenERP is the new search field.

What is new about it? Well, for starters, now you have only one integrated search field. The new search field doesn't look like a form any more, it has been genuinely designed to look and serve as a search field. We decided to change it as it was a serious usability issue. When trying to search for something, users were filling in the search field and then clicked create. 

This is how the old search used to be

Now, with the fixed issue this is how the new search looks like

This smart search incorporates the prior individual search fields in one. Those features are not lost, just grouped in a single search box. 

All the features that were available before are still there:

• apply advanced filter on all fields of the document
  

For now, these are the changes made for the search view and we are sure that will optimize your searches and make ti easier for you to customize it to your liking and needs.  

One of the priorities we have at OpenERP s.a. is usability! In this extent, we have developed another feature that we believe will simplify the use of your configuration in OpenERP. How did we make this be possible? First of all, we grouped the configuration in one single place and simplified the screen by giving you the freedom to decide what you want use and what you want to see. 

In former versions of OpenERP, the user had to change his interface, by switching between simplified and extended, then install modules, and/or add groups to users. As a user, you were really not offered many choices and sometimes had to use some features that you didn't need.

Now, each application has its own configuration defined in one form. All those forms are in the menu Settings of OpenERP. The configuration form gives the users options to select from and apply immediately. Once done, the system is configured immediately

Let's see how this is done with and example of a Sales Order. Here is a sale order without configuration:  

Configure sales in Settings/Configuration/Sales:

Here you have the wizard with the features you want: 

After configuration, a sales order looks like this: 

So, there you have it, the new improved configuration wizard to make your usability experience with OpenERP more pleasant and faster.

This year's annual summit was a great success due to the quality of the presentations, shared vision and strategy and the ever increasing number of participants. But also, to the opportunity an event like this gives our community and partners to come together, collaborate and also have some fun.

OpenERP is based on a unique ecosystem where the community, partners and editor work together to build a successful, relevant and affordable product. In order to express our gratitude and recognition towards our community and partners, this year's summit included an awards ceremony.
 

Among the categories selected this year were the Best Contributor Award, Best Partner Asia, Best Partner Europe and many others. It was often quite difficult to select the nominees and particularly to pick one winner among them.

The final award winners are the following:

Best Contributor: Camptocamp 

They have been gold partners for more than 5 years now and have been contributing immensely ever since. A quick look on http://apps.openerp.com will show why they won the best OpenERP contributor award 2012. This award specifically rewards the author of the OpenERP modules and tools that are most used by the community. Camptocamp's webkit-based reporting engine and geoengine are great examples of such contributions.

Most active contributor: Vauxoo

The most active contributor awards goes to the contributor who has been producing the largest number of modules, patches, translations and localizations during the last year.

Any member of the community will certainly know Vauxoo for their tireless dedication to the OpenERP community, and their uncompromising open source spirit (Have you seen Nhomar's talk this year? http://slidesha.re/K1eI1O

This incredible company is not only the largest OpenERP Partner in Latin America, but they manage to create and maintain OpenERP localizations and translations for half of LATAM countries, all by themselves! Those yearly contributions represent a huge number of hours and resources, and clearly designates them as most active contributor for 2012.

Best Partner Europe: Smile

Smile has been selected as the best partner in Europe because of it's successes in their customer implementation projects. They helped putting OpenERP in production to some of the biggest companies using OpenERP and they implement an impressive number of projects on OpenERP every year. Some of the big projects that Smile worked on are: France24, Veolia, Nouvelles Frontieres and many others. 

Best Partner America: NovaPoint

There  are many reasons why Novapoint deserves this recognition. First of all,  for an excellent communication with the vendor, in terms of decision  making and collaboration. Secondly, for fully embracing OpenERP’s  business model and its OpenERP Enterprise. Last, but not least for  having published many contributions. They have also been an important player in the penetration of OpenERP in the US market from a product perspective with the adaptation of several specific business concepts like check writing, deposit tickets, credit card payment, and payroll systems integration.

Best Partner Asia: Itara

Itara succeeded to replace a well known ERP for his customer Trident. They have replaced Dynamics with OpenERP and implemented several modules, such as: Sales, Purchase, Manufacturing, Warehouse Management, etc. Later on, they migrated to version 5.0 to 6.0 and after 1 year they get managed to replace Tally, Accounting system with OpenERP. Now, Trident is a big success story in the Indian market with Indian localization. See here an interview with Rajesh Kanna, CEO of Itara: http://bit.ly/JMXljj

Best Partner Africa: Kazacube

From  the begining of the partnership, Kazacube has had a good and fruitful relationship with the vendor. In a very short time, it became the second best OpenERP CTP worldwide. Moreover, in terms of revenue and activity in Africa, there is no equal partner just yet. 

Best CTP: Vauxoo

It's official, Vauxoo has trained more than 140 people in just one year. They have managed  to cover a number of countries in Latin America, like Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, etc. This winner was a no brainer for OpenERP, as their numbers and dedication speak for themselves. Moreover, Vauxoo forecasts that this year is to at least double this number. 

Best Translation team: Arabic Launchpad Team

This award goes to the translation team that has been producing the most impressive translation effort over the past year. Among the 42 teams assigned as of 2012, the Arabic team is clearly the winner. They started translating from scratch little more than a year ago, and have aleady completed 70% of the complete OpenERP translation (more than 18000 terms to translate in total). We do have many teams actively maintaining their translations above the 90% bar, but few of them have been able to get from 0 to 70% in such a short amount of time!

Most active Community website: Openerp-italia

Many countries have an active OpenERP Community, and most of them have a community website. Among them, the Italian Community's website ranks highest in terms of activity, as reported by various traffic analysis means. They have a large number of users and contributors, as well as a wiki and a very active forum, which could even start to overshadow the official OpenERP.com forum!

Although we could only reward 9 winners, for many of them it was a close call, and it is likely that next year's awards will offer quite a different landscape! 

We are of course deeply grateful to every single contributor, it is a great honor and pride to build the world's best ERP system together with so many enthusiastic people, from all over the planet!

We are happy to introduce Elico Corp as the first CTP Premium Partner for China.

OpenERP has designed a Certified Training Partner Program to leverage OpenERP training capabilities worldwide. This program aims to enable OpenERP Partners to provide a consistent and high quality level of training.

OpenERP Partners who wish to become Certified Training Partner must provide specialized functional and technical trainings. These trainings cover aspects such as Product lifecycle management, Supply chain management, Warehouse Management, Customer Relationship Management, Sales Order Processing, Online Sales, Financials, Human Resources and Decision Support System, etc. With Elico Corp, OpenERP is able to reach China and offer trainings locally.

Elico Corp is a Sino-European OpenERP official partner. They are fully dedicated to OpenERP consulting solutions towards Chinese-based SMEs. European and Chinese consultants provide out-of-the-box and tailor-made OpenERP implementations completed by local technical team for hosting solutions, hotline assistance and OpenERP development services. Their area of expertise ranges from CRM and services, supply chain management, trading and manufacturing.

More information: http://www.openerp.net.cn

We have just concluded our three day annual summit in Brussels. It has been a great opportunity for the OpenERP team to share the new features of v7.0., our vision and strategy for 2012, tips and tricks on how to manage OpenERP projects and many more. Furthermore, it has also been a great chance for our community and partners to showcase what they have been working on, may they be developments or successful case studies. 

Whether you have been part of our event or not, you can find the presentations held during the Open Days 2012 on our slideshare channel http://slidesha.re/9zuI5o. There were more than 40 presentations covering technical, functional and success stories. Feel free to browse through them, download and share. 

We also invite you to look at the pictures of the event. Find yourself, tag and share http://on.fb.me/J3Sk9p Also, after you're done with Facebook, check out what the participants have tweeted during the event http://bit.ly/HQImsU.

3 days, approximately 600 participants, more than 40 presentations!

We want to thank all participants for joining us and sharing our vision. A special thanks goes to all our community members and partners who have presented a topic and contributed to this amazing OpenERP Customer, Community and Partner Summit. 

P.S. If you participated to this event and want to give us your feedback, email events(at)openerp.com!

We are going to develop significant improvements in the framework for the version 7.0. These improvements will allow OpenERP to be even more modular, to be easier to learn for new developers, to develop module with less lines of code and to be more pythonic.

Our first tests allowed us to reduce a simple module (the "idea" one) from 300 lines of code to 200 lines (33% less). We also significantly reduced the number of methods' signatures to learn by making all concepts more orthogonal and generic. This will lower the learning curve for new developers.

Among all the improvements, the most important ones are:

Of course, we will ensure that all those improvements will be backward compatible so that v7.0 will still support all community modules.

All these improvements will be presented and discussed/challenged during the community meeting of the next week. If you want to read the presentation before or you can not join us next week, you can already find it at http://thu.openerp.com/open-days-2012/core-api-draft.html.

OpenERP  6.1 comes with a load of new features, and one of them provides a much  greater ability to scale up on modern hardware.  Until now, OpenERP  offered only one option: a multi-threaded HTTP layer, with a limited  ability to use available computing resources.  F or  the 6.1 release, one of the goal was to make it easy to run the OpenERP  server in multiple processes, harvesting big performance gains. Doing so introduces nice deployment choices and development opportunities.  

By  running a Python application such as OpenERP 6.1 in multiple processes  instead of multiple threads, one can avoid Python's Global Interpreter  Lock (GIL[0]) and take advantage of the multiple cores of today's  machines.   

This  (rather technical) post explains how the upcoming OpenERP version runs  more efficiently on multi-core systems by using the excellent  Gunicorn[1] HTTP server.  

This subject will also be covered during the 2012 OpenDays. The slides for the talk are already available at http://bit.ly/IkOYyq

 Dance around the GIL 

To create and manage processes, we first thought to use the  `multiprocessing`[3] module. When the time to finally implement a  multi-process solution arrived, we quickly thought it was better to  handle the added complexity in the Unix way: make a specific piece of  code to manage processes. As it happens, such specific piece of code  already exists and we didn't write anything (and thus didn't use  `multiprocessing`): we simply turned the server into a WSGI-compliant  application, leaving the responsibility to manage it to someone else.  That someone else is Gunicorn[1]. 

Gunicorn  is a Python HTTP server with support for WSGI[2]. It uses the pre-fork  model to spawn a WSGI-compliant application into different processes.   In our case, the WSGI application is the OpenERP server. The server has  its WSGI entry point located in the `openerp.wsgi` module. It is simply  named `application`. In our repository, we also provide a sample  `gunicorn.conf.py` configuration file. Assembling the pieces together,  launching the server with multiple processes is a simple as: 

   > gunicorn openerp:wsgi.core.application -c /path/to/gunicorn.conf.py 

You can modify the configuration to your liking. Gunicorn is well  documented and the comments in the sample configuration file should  prove enough to get you started. Just note that it is not possible to  pass arguments to OpenERP on the command line (i.e. the way you would do  it with `openerp-server`). Instead, you can directly set OpenERP's  configuration values from within the Gunicorn configuration file (as it  is done in the example file). 

Awesomeness provided by the beast

 It is still possible to start the server with the regular  `openerp-server` script. Doing so uses a multi-threaded HTTP layer (this  is not the 6.0 HTTP layer: we also use the WSGI entry point, this time  serving it with `werkzeug`[4]). But serving OpenERP with Gunicorn is  great! When handling two concurrent CPU-bound requests with two workers  (on at least two cores), you can expect a nearly 2x speed-up[5]. Of  course, if the two requests lock the same rows in database and don't  spend much of their time running Python code, you might achieve no  speed-up at all.  

Beside  taking advantage of a multi-core setup, Gunicorn provides a few hooks  that we use to limit the resources made available to each request. It is  also possible to automatically kill and restart processes after they  have served a few thousands of requests, to mitigate memory waste, if  any. We have added three new options -- although they are documented as  command-line options, they really are used only with Gunicorn:   

*  `virtual-memory-limit` limits how much memory a process can allocate. When the limit is reached, a `MemoryError` is raised.  

*  `virtual-memory-reset` is a similar limit: when the amount of memory used exceeds that limit, the process will gracefully die after the  current request and Gunicorn will re-spawn a new process. This is  again a safety net against memory leak.  

* `cpu-time-limit` limits the amount of CPU time a request can use, also raising an exception when the limit is reached. 

 WSGI and statelessness

To ensure we could run multiple OpenERP processes safely, we had to  modify the server to make it stateless, because any request can be  handled by any process. For this reason, we changed the implementation  (and the name) of the `osv_memory` class. Instead of being held in  memory, a `TransientModel` is stored in database, just like a regular  `Model` (the new name for `osv`). The difference with a `Model` is that `TransientModel` rows are automatically deleted after a while.  

Server-side  caching is another issue. It's useful for improving performance in some  situations, but makes the server partially stateable and thus requires  synchronization. Fortunately, most of OpenERP caches are of minor  importance and read-only, so the relatively fast process recycling will  take care of refreshing The only cache that really required an update is  the login cache; because an authentication check is done for each  request, if you change your password (causing only one process cache to  be updated) you will immediately be locked out. The trivial way we fixed  it was to ignore the login cache whenever an authentication fails,  causing a refresh of the cache on that process. After a change of  password all caches will thus be refreshed transparently one by one.

Still, for the situation that needs it (i.e. it is really necessary to  run multiple processes while still allowing configuration changes), we  implemented a signalling scheme using the PostgreSQL database. Whenever  caches are invalidated on a process, or a new module is installed, the  process signals the change to other processes (managed by the same  Gunicorn instance, or running on a different machine). The solution will  be part of a next 6.1 release.  

As  mentioned above, the OpenERP server is now a library exposing a WSGI  entry point. It is also a kind of WSGI middleware as it can dispatch  requests to other, registered entry points. This is indeed the way we  have now embedded the web client in the server: the `openerp-web`  project provides its own addons directory, which is put in the server's  addons path. The server loads the web addons at startup because it is  the default value in the new `server_wide_modules`[6] option (exposed on  the command line as `--load`). When being loaded, the web addons  registers itself as a WSGI entry point: the server serves XML-RPC and  regular browser requests on the same port (8069 by default). Of course  you can use the same principle for your own modules. 

Please note the web client is storing its sessions on disk. If you plan  to deploy multiple web clients, embedded in the server or not, you have  to make sure the sessions can be accessed by any of them. 

Wrapping up  

Embracing  existing (and great) tools allow us to be leaner and meaner. This is  true with WSGI and Gunicorn but we hope to continue in this direction.  One important question is left unanswered: how many processes must  Gunicorn spawn on a given machine to be as efficient as possible? We  don't know yet the answer but we should have it quite soon: we are  assembling benchmarks in the `openerp-command` repository.   

[0] http://dabeaz.blogspot.com/2010/01/python-gil-visualized.html 

[1] http://gunicorn.org/ 

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Server_Gateway_Interface 

[3] http://docs.python.org/library/multiprocessing.html 

[4] http://werkzeug.pocoo.org/ 

[5]  My use of the word 'speed-up' may not be completely appropriate:  speed-up is normally used for parallel computation. In this post a 2x  speed-up means you can run a second request with no impact on another  one. 

[6]  Server-wide modules are not tied to a particular database. For  instance, the web client can serve a page to create a new database;  obviously the web client has to run even if a database is not yet  loaded.

Bista Solutions announced the release of an E-Commerce module which integrates eBay with OpenERP. The OpenERP eBay connector was developed over a period of two years, while working with several leading eBay sellers. 

Some of the benefits this connector is that it provides a single, integrated business application that links your business with ecommerce, CRM, marketing, order management, inventory, manufacturing and accounting. You are now able to manage one or more web stores and execute ecommerce activities in different countries, languages, currencies and channels.

OpenERP eBay connector features:

Watch here a demo of the ebay connector. 

If you want the ebay connector, get it here.

Enjoy!

The news is out, OpenERP's latest version 6.1. is here. It's more user-friendly, even more business oriented and efficient to manage your company. Read more about the new features.

How to discover the latest version 6.1.?

• Demo: http://demo.openerp.com
• Online: http://openerp.com/online
• Download: http://openerp.com/downloads

We have also put together a functional demo that presents 6.1. Watch this video to learn directly from us what OpenERP 6.1. can do for you. Share it in your company, with your clients and implement it now for your business.

Watch on Youtube!

We remind you that we will present v6.1. in detail at our 2012 Community, Customers and Partners Summit. Find out more and get your free ticket to our most important event of the year.

Yes, it's that important announcement! OpenERP is excited to announce the release of its 6.1. final version. After more than a year of joint effort with our community and partners, we are proud to present the final version of OpenERP 6.1. With the new version we have developed many new features like touchscreen POS, electronic invoicing, kanban views, assets managements, etc. The performance has also been significantly enhanced through the new web client and a new architecture that can now support multi servers and multi processing. Worth mentioning is that the latest technologies, like those used by gmail and facebook have been incorporated in this version. Read more about the new features

Even easier to use and learn

OpenERP has been already recognized for its ease of use compared to other leading ERP softwares. We are going one step further, once you have installed it, you can immediately start using it! No need for configuration, with the exception of the accounting module.

With a much more straight forward welcome page, it's easy to dive right into the applications you need most. As you start using the application and want to use some of its most advanced features, progress bars with menus will help you set the application just the way you want. Users can also enjoy kanban views to manage the flow of applicants, the tasks in a project or even their sales pipeline. Not bad for an ERP!

A brand new web client

The new web client has been entirely redeveloped. We have used the latest web technologies and have redesigned its architecture. As a result, the new OpenERP web interface is more intuitive and the performance is astonishing. The navigation speed through the screens is incredible providing an unmatched level of comfort for the user. But this is not all. The new web client is also extremely modular and allows integrating OpenERP with a web site or a portal in only a few clicks.

Touchscreen Point of Sales 

OpenERP 6.1 provides a new module for outlets. This module is 100% web, works offline and automatically synchronizes with the OpenERP server when the connection is restored. The POS module is compatible with all PC tablets and iPad, offering multiple payment methods. Product selection can be done in several ways: using a barcode reader, browsing through categories of products or via a text search.

A social and flexible ERP

Companies still exchange many documents in paper format. An expensive and inefficient way of working. OpenERP 6.1 is offering several options to help companies boost their productivity. First, integrated portals will allow companies to provide access to OpenERP in a completely secure way to its external partners. At the other end, customers can, for example, refer to the inventory, place orders and track shipments, as well as manage their bills. OpenERP 6.1. goes further than that, as you can send an invoice and/or a sales order and your customer will have an option to access it in OpenERP and even integrate it automatically in his own ERP instance. 

New additional modules 

Other additional features introduced with OpenERP 6.1 are: new payroll engine, an asset management module, new financial reports and many more. OpenERP is continuing to expand its functionalities through both internal modules and now over 1800 apps available at http://apps.openerp.com

How to discover the latest version 6.1.?

• Demo: http://demo.openerp.com
• Online: http://openerp.com/online
• Download: http://openerp.com/downloads

Feridis, Luxembourg based IT company, has published in November last year a book analysing the leader (SAP) and the challenger (OpenERP) of the enterprise management software. This book has generated a lot of reactions in the SAP and OpenERP communities, so they have decided to release their book for free, or the price of one tweet.

This book, "OpenERP evaluation with SAP as reference", exposes the SAP experts’ eye on an emerging solution i.e. OpenERP.  It puts into perspective the advantages of their implementation  methodologies, the differences in the features, customization approaches, and business models.

This new book which gives you an idea on everything you ever needed to know about what an ERP can do. Through detailed analysis, it evaluates and compares SAP, the leader, and OpenERP, the challenger, so you can judge for yourself.

SAP  users will discover in this book how OpenERP solves the same problems  as SAP but with a totally different approach and point of view in terms of marketing, product development and distribution model. At the other end, OpenERP users will discover what makes SAP the world leader  in the enterprise management software market.

Through this book, you will learn how to assess differently OpenERP and SAP based on your specific needs, avoid hidden costs of an OpenERP or SAP implementation and the advantages of different implementation methodologies. Moreover, you will discover what makes SAP such a good and popular product and how OpenERP SA succeed to build a software comparable to SAP in only 5 years.

Do you want to get your hands on a copy of this book before anyone else?  Hot of the press, this book is available on Amazon (http://amzn.to/zs28CN), but you can have your free copy by paying with a tweet.

To download the free ebook: http://bit.ly/wVTxjo

Make sure click "View fullscreen" on the buttom of the slides to visualize the agenda better!

OpenERP OpenDays 2012 Agenda

Write it down your agenda and book your tickets. This year's OpenERP Community, Customers and Partners Summit will take place from April 11th to April 13th in Brussels. Last year was a success and we are confident that this year more people will join and more ideas and knowledge will be shared.

What are these days all about?

The event is dedicated to all our community and partners and, for the first time, also for clients. It's a time when we all come together and we present the new features, future version, achievements and a place where you can showcase your case studies, methodology or developments.Be there and see directly from the source the features of the 6.2 release!

What's new for this edition?

• opened to end user customers (for the 11th and 12th). Partners are encouraged to invite their customers
• new format with plenary session in the morning and workshops in the afternoon. You can choose among over 23 tutorial/ training sessions
• afternoon sessions will be split in 5 tracks: developers track, 2 functional tracks, business track and meet with OpenERP track.

See agenda below:

Practical info:

• we will organize OpenERP Awards, a fun way to thank our community and partners for their contributions!
• email Nicoleta, at ngh(at)openerp.com if you want to present a topic! (limited seats).  
• email our Event Manager for any questions regarding the organization of this event: events(at)openerp.com.

Get your free ticket for the event here!

We have launched a new service called Runbot available now for partners to help them test their own developments. Launchpad allows us to easily collaborate with the community and host all the branches online. Consequently, 'runbot' is a platform where you can test the branches pushed on Launchpad.

With this new service, partners can test very easily, by connecting to any of the available branches. If there are older branches, they can be rebuilt so that they can be tested. If you have branches on Launchpad, even if they are older, you can test them on the runbot. 

Why was runbot developed?

The OpenERP Runbot (or simply runbot) is a program monitoring and running branches on Launchpad belonging to the different OpenERP projects, namely "openobject-server", "openobject-addons", "openobject-client-web", and "openerp-web". Doing so it generates a number of useful HTML reports. 

Initially, the goal was simply to have constantly an up-to-date (i.e. using the latest commits) running OpenERP server (with its associated addons and web client) for testing and demo purposes, for both the trunk and the stable (v6) branches.

After a while, since installing some modules in demo mode already performs some automatic tests, we changed a bit the runbot to also show on a web page if those tests passed or failed. Since then a few other changes were made (e.g. allow multiple Launchpad teams) but the overall goal is still the same.

The runbot is currently running on http://runbot.openerp.com/ where it monitors thousands of branches and keeps 100 of them alive. It is also available from launchpad.net (http://launchpad.net/openerp-tools) so you can run it on your own infrastructure.

How does it work & how can you use it?

The runbot is regularly fetching branches statuses from Launchpad. Every time a branch is modified the runbot fires a new job. The job is responsible for running the tests and reporting whether the tests did pass or fail; it also runs the server and the web client so that anybody with a browser can actually use the freshly started OpenERP instance.

Browsing is public, but the service is dedicated to partners, so they are welcome to register a few specific branches or a complete team (in this case all the team branches will be monitored) via their Partner Portal: http://openerp.my.openerp.com)

Get in touch with us or register your own branches on your Partner Portal!

Public access here: http://runbot.openerp.com/

The brand new OpenERP touchscreen point of sale available with 6.1 allows you to manage your shop sales very easily. It's fully web based so that you don't have to install or deploy any software and all the sales shops can be easily consolidated. It works in connected and disconnected modes so that you can continue to sell if you lose your internet connection.

Here's a summary of its main features and benefits:

100% WEB based

• available for any touchscreen device (ipod, ipad, any tablet)
• mobile (with portable devices)
  
• no installation required
  

Packed as a standard OpenERP module

• no installation, easy deployment
• allows customization & adapts to different needs
  

Integrated with OpenERP

• no synchronization needed, completely integrated
• all OpenERP available, use OpenERP for backend
  
• consolidate shops almost in real time
  

Work offline, with no server connection

• continue working even when your connection is down
• if you close your browser, data won't be lost
  

Sexy & easy to use

• fully web based with a clean interface
• smart interface

If you need to use the POS for your restaurant, for example, your employees can record at the same time multiple tickets without having to wait to do one transaction at a time. Along, to facilitate payment, the application allows multiple payment methods.

The POS application is so simple and accessible to use that your shop or restaurant will never need any other tool to manage orders. Due to its smart and user-friendly interface you don't need any training to learn how to use it. Think of it as an out-of-the-box solution to boost your business' productivity.

We are glad to announce another brilliant and useful development that you might not have heard of, but which can help your business. Taxes are always a drag and can be an excruciating process. But if you are running your business on OpenERP, now you can take advantage of a new solution to help you with your taxes. Recently, Avalara together with one of our USA partners, NovaPoint have developed AvaTax. AvaTax is great solution to help you calculate your tax. Read below more info.

"Avalara, the leading provider of fully automated, up-to-date sales and use tax compliance solutions, announced the certified release of AvaTax for OpenERP, as part of its strategic partnership with NovaPoint Group LLC. NovaPoint, a premier provider of IT Consulting solutions for small to medium-sized businesses is the leading U.S. partner of OpenERP."

"AvaTax is a fully-integrated solution, offering Avalara’s easy-to-use sales tax calculation and filing capability, eliminating the hassle of tax compliance processes and minimizing the risks associated with sales and use tax audits. AvaTax is a web-based service that delivers instant sales tax calculations using a centrally-managed, highly-accurate calculation engine. OpenERP clients receive the most up-to-date sales tax rates, rules and jurisdiction boundaries currently available."

To read the whole article, access the link here!

This announcement is for all the OpenERP partners and community members! We want to give you the heads-up about our annual OpenERP Community and Partners Days!
 
Come and share your experience with community members, the OpenERP team and other partners during these three days. Last year we had a great time, updated everyone with the latest OpenERP news, features and had enough time to network. Read more about last year's edition

This year's edition, we are will focus on the new 6.1 version, all the new features, offers and many other relevant information.
 
When: Wednesday 11, Thursday 12, Friday 13 of April 2012
Where: Université Libre de Bruxelles (Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt 50, 1050, Bruxelles -           Belgium, map: http://bit.ly/sdmRiK)
More info: http://bit.ly/rLfr9E.
 
Participation is free, but we haven't opened registration for now. Nevertheless, save the date and plan your visit to Brussels.

Today, we are glad to announce the availability of OpenERP 6.1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1). Highly usable, easier to learn, customized to your needs describes best the new OpenERP release. 

With over 50 new features including a streamlined setup and configuration process, a brand new web interface and modern mobile and social features, OpenERP 6.1 will take your business further than ever! Read more about the new features

This new version is the result of one year of improvements, and includes countless contributions from partners and community members, for which we are very grateful! 

We invite you to download it, test it and send us your feedback to make the final version just perfect!

How can you help?

• Download OpenERP 6.1 RC1 (available as a Windows installer, Debian/Ubuntu package, RPM package and source tarball)
• Send us your feedback by reporting any issues you find via our Launchpad bug tracker.
• Please suggest translations via Launchpad translations for areas that are not translated in your language (click View All Languages at the bottom of the list). See also our guide to learn mode about translating OpenERP.

Enjoy your first look at OpenERP 6.1! We are looking forward to your feedback and impressions!

It's not secret anymore that that the main advantage of OpenERP is that it's simple, easy to use and fully integrated. So, it can take as short as a few seconds to create a  sale - purchase workflow, starting from the quotation, confirming your sale order and if not enough stock it will automatically create the Purchase Order to your supplier.

Very good process, but you must make sure that the products are configured in your OpenERP database, manually maintain the prices of those products, confirm manually your Purchase Order to your supplier and so on. 

Now, let's consider an example in a store reselling computer devices. When a customer comes to the shop and asks the price of a product, a quotation will be created to get latest price (which often changes everyday). This requires manual calculation on the margin. Extra info desired by the customer can be date of arrival of the product, so the company has to do its investigation.  

Unfortunately, the customer doesn't always decide right away and will return on a different day  to confirm his order. In many cases, the price and availability from the supplier are not valid any more. So, the store has to begin the process all over again. In the end, the customer will confirms the sales order.  

As a result, a PO is generated by OpenERP but the company has to re-encode manually the PO in the supplier tool. Then, check a few days later why the product was not yet been delivered and what's the new delivery date. Finally, the store will make a small margin of 5% on the 35 EUR product while it spent almost an hour in different steps to make this order.

OpenERP-Ingram module makes your life easier! It simplifies a lot the above list of tasks in the sales purchase traditional flow !

How does it works ?

Once the module is installed, you can configure a new Ingram Micro profile containing your credentials. You can then download automatically the complete list of products from the Ingram Micro catalogue to your OpenERP product database. The best is to schedule a synchronisation (once a week, once a day, several times a day, etc).

As a consequence, when creating an SO you can directly see all the available products from Ingram, their current prices, availability, browse by category, etc... Of course you can apply the price list and have the correct margin applied automatically.

Before confirming a SO  you can check if they were changes in prices and stock availability  between the last update of the SO and now. This is useful to ensure the prices and availability are still correct. Further, the SO confirmation triggers a PO, which you can review and edit manually as usual in OpenERP.

After the PO is confirmed it will trigger automatically the order to Ingram Micro, on which you can follow-up at any time the status of the delivery and the planned delivery date in OpenERP in real-time (it'll check it automatically from the Ingram Micro servers).

The gain of time by using this module is impressive! As in no time, you can provide up to date information to your customers. The module is available on Launchpad, fully Open-Source (AGPL). Nevertheless, BHC team is providing assistance, training and customization for this ule. 

                            Watch here a short video on how this feature works!

You like OpenERP, but feel like you want to personalise it more? Now, OpenERP goes a step further and lets you customize your dashboard. How? you will ask. Thanks to a new feature that allows you to customize your dashboard by adding new boards of any search view.

Let's say you are not a big fan of the default dashboard and you feel like the view provided are not the most relevant to you. So, now you can remove the board you find useless and customize your own one. 

How is it done?

Step 1: access one search view 

Step 2: apply the filter you want to see at each connection to the application (eg. on sales, manufacturing, etc)

Step 3: add it into the dashboard in the same space where you can save the filter

Step 4: choose the application you want it visible on and the name of the array

Look at this simple example below from Purchase, where I want to put on the application's dashboard "Purchases to Approve". After I access the search view and apply the filter for "Purchases to Approve", I can add it immediately to my Purchase dashboard.

In less than a minute, the search view is visible on the dashboard

Of course, you are free to delete what you don't need or like, but just in case you change your mind there is a reset button to return to the default view.

So, go ahead and personalise your OpenERP!

With 15 years of SAP experience and 2 years of OpenERP partnership, Feridis is the author of "OpenERP evaluation with SAP as reference". The book objectively describes the current differences and challenges,  along with the opportunity for you to select a solution, expand your  knowledge and hopefully find new business.

Along with this new exciting book, OpenERP has worked on its latest book to help you improve the management of your company and the ease of use in OpenERP. In this respect, OpenERP has published a total of 4 books this year. The books cover subjects like: CRM, Logistics, Manufacturing and the latest one covering Accounting.

Be among the first to get your hands on these book! Take advantage of this promotion and benefit from our special pack of two books. You can acquire a special pack now, just acces our ecommerce page:
 

•      OpenERP evaluation with SAP as reference
  Through detailed analysis, it evaluates and compares SAP and  OpenERP, the leading open source system, so you can judge for yourself.  
   

•     Open Source Accounting with OpenERP
  Record journal entries, send invoices, control bank statements, customize reports and manage budgets.  

"OpenERP evaluation with SAP as reference"  is a new book which gives you an idea on everything you ever needed to  know about what an open source ERP can do. Through detailed analysis, it  evaluates and compares SAP and OpenERP, the leading open source system.  Why is OpenERP easier to use? How  does its function allow companies to  innovate and customise? Why is open source more affordable when it  comes to implementation? Read more...

"Open Source Accounting with OpenERP"  In this company your accounting can be managed on a national and  international level, also in a multi-company environment. With the smart  user interface, entries, reconciliation and payments can be quickly  managed. Analytic accounting can be integrated with projects, budgets,  timesheets, and warehouse management to name some. Read more...

Order now your pack directly from our website!

How do you keep track of your contracts? Are you sure you are invoicing the right people for the work you or your employees are doing? Well, if you are not sure of the answers to these simple questions, then you should certainly use this OpenERP application. It's nothing new, but it will help you with your transactions and invoices.

Sales contract is planned to be an autonomous application, based on the account analytic analysis module. In two clicks you create it as a menu entry in Sales/Sales/Contract and it will provide you a quick and easy way to create a contract, as well as keep track of the already existing ones.

We know that not all companies work solely based on Sales Orders. As a result, we thought that this app will facilitate companies that work as well with contracts. As a consequence, salesmen will have more accessibility to manage contracts and analytic accounts in OpenERP. A list view is available, which gives you an overall on the status of each contract. 

How does it exactly work?

For example, your company offers IT consultancy and you have multiple projects. To be able to invoice the right project, you will input the amount of hours spent on each of your projects. At the end of the project, you can create directly an invoice, which aggregates all the hours spent per project/employee, which were added in their timesheet. 

Before if the salesman wanted to know all this info, he needed access to Accounting and Project Management to be able to verify this data. But now, this has been simplified and reduced to a clean and straightforward view.  

Renewal reminder 

Not to worry about expiring contracts. OpenERP will automatically send you an email to remind you about end dates of your contracts. So, for instance, once a week the salesman will receive an email to remind him about contracts close to their end date or support hours that have been exhausted, together with instructions to proceed. See example below. 

This is the only application that easily gives to your salesman or your project manager the ability to check the work done and create draft invoices depending on the encoded time on their timesheet according to their projects or contract  

We encourage you to integrate this application with the rest of your system and facilitate easier contract/project invoicing and collaboration between salesman and project manager.

Ever found yourself frustrated that you have to browse through 10 windows just to add a simple task? Or ever forgot where you added your task? Look no longer, OpenERP developed a to-do application in the CRM that enables salesmen to link their opportunities to a light task list. 

This application enables salesmen to have a simple to do list that is pre-filtered on their own tasks. They continue managing their opportunities as usual and are also able to create a to-do list directly in the opportunity itself. 

We give you the freedom to install it only if you want, as the application does not get installed by default. So, just access the configuration and install from the features of the CRM selecting "To Do list". After installing it, an extra tab will appear in your Sales module, called "My Tasks". The good news is that it's available both on the GTK and the webclient. 

Now picture  this: a salesman can create a new task in the "My Tasks" menu entry in  the CRM. In this list, he can see all his to do things, the timing, and even the context. This list is exactly the same as the one you have in Project management. This means that all recorded tasks in the system from project management or opportunities are grouped in the same view.  From this list, the user can see his own tasks, the ones he directly created and the ones that have been assigned to him. This gives him quick access to all things he has to do today, this week this month or  in the long term.  

This  feature is based on the "Getting Things Done" methodology. It is a way to organize and manage tasks following the timing and the context of the  "resolution of the task". It is for this reason that by installing this application, a new menu tab is added also in project management. 

So, get this application and get organized!

At OpenERP we are constantly developing nifty features to make your life easier. OpenERP v6.1 will include a great feature: B2B/B2C exchange of invoices, sale orders and purchase orders, called EDI. 

What is EDI and what's its purpose? In short, EDI (electronic data interchange) has the purpose to simplify and make more efficient the interactions between companies. Instead of sending a bundle of papers to their customers or suppliers, companies can execute their transactions online.

Whether you are working with OpenERP or not, EDI will allow you to export and import specific OpenERP documents between OpenERP instances and 3rd-party systems. 

Let's look at an example: ACME Systems accountant validates an invoice for Agrolait, which triggers an automated email notification to Agrolait. See below:

In turn, Agrolait will be able to:

Accounting, Sales and Purchase modules are integrated with the EDI. So, from these modules you can directly generate a document and email it. It's up to you to customize your email notifications.  

Agrolait can push this invoice in their own management software through 3 solutions. See the screenshot below:

First two options are directed to the OpenERP users. Option one is pretty straight forward and by clicking it, Agrolait automatically imports the invoice into their own database. Second option permits them to create a new instance in case they don't have one already and wish to continue working in OpenERP. Consequently, after they have created their OpenERP instance, the invoice will automatically be imported. 

Third option allows 3rd-party applications. So, if your customers or suppliers use a different application than OpenERP with the EDI it is very easy to extract data. See aside a sample of the code.

Last but not least, you have multiple ways of paying online, as the company is the one that configues the payment methods. For example, Paypal if you already have a Paypal account or bank transfer. OpenERP believes that this will close the gap between the clients and their suppliers by helping businesses worry less about payment logistics. 

This feature will be available in our release of the v6.1.